As of now, I am eleven disks into the 55. Of course I have heard many of the Bach works before, but I never had ability to control when I could listen to the St. Matthew Passion. I came to &quot;early music&quot; in the 1970's when there were starting to be more recordings with historic instruments than with the later ones used in the first recordings in this set, so the sound of the Adam de la Halle works and Renaisance era dances was a surprising combination. But I had never heard Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion before. I am particularly glad to have found the Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau performance in the cantata on CD 2. I will not be rushing; so far I am enjoying these a great deal.Report Abuse

I seriously anyone will be bored by the range of recordings selected from the Arkiv productions. Sure, there are some titles I would not have included had I had the responsibility of choosing, but there are hardly any selections not worth listening to. The majority of selections are taken from important but lesser known composers, and all are cleanly recorded or remastered in keeping with Arkiv's high production standards. There may be a tad too much Bach (11 of the 55 CDs) but as these are often reference recordings, one can't complain too much. One small quibble: I would have liked a CD with texts and liner notes included. Overall, the wealth of material in this highly desirable set will provide hours of pleasurable listening. Strongly recommended.Report Abuse

It is not possible to review a collection of 55 of the best titles issued by the highly respected Archiv label over some 65 years in a few sentences. Probably all of the titles in the collection have been reviewed before, and most of them are outstanding. I can only say that this collection, with a number of titles out of production and difficult to get proved irresistible to me, and I was not disappointed. It is difficult to imagine a more distinguished collection of (mostly, but not exclusively German) classical music, ranging from Gregorian Chant to Beethoven, and certainly not at this price. Thanks, Archiv!Report Abuse